The present invention is related to the subject matter of the following commonly assigned, co-pending United States Patent Applications filed concurrently herewith: Ser. No. 09/692,350 entitled “Efficient Process for Handover Between Subnet Managers”; Ser. No. 09/692,347 entitled “Method and System for Scalably Selecting Unique Transaction Identifiers”; Ser. No. 09/692,349 entitled “Method And System For Reliably Defining and Determining Timeout Values In Unreliable Datagrams”; and Ser. No. 09/692,353 entitled “Method and System For Choosing A Queue Protection Key That is Tamper-proof From An Application”. The content of the above-referenced applications is incorporated herein by reference.
1. Technical Field
The present invention relates in general to computer networks and, in particular, to connecting devices to a computer network. Still more particularly, the present invention relates to a method and system for informing an operating system when a new device is connected to a System Area Network.
2. Description of the Related Art
Distributed computer networks are known in the art. In a traditional network, individual components of the network are interconnected via a parallel bus, such as a PCIX bus. The parallel bus has a relatively small number of plug-in ports for connecting the components. The number of plug-in-ports is set (i.e., the number cannot be increased). At maximum loading, a PCIX bus transmits data at about 1 Gbyte/second.
The introduction of high performance adapters (e.g., SCSI adapters), Internet-based networks, and other high performance network components has resulted in increased demand for bandwidth, faster network connections, distributed processing functionality, and scaling with processor performance. These and other demands are quickly outpacing the current parallel bus technology and are making the limitations of parallel buses even more visible. PCIX bus, for example, is not scalable, i.e., the length of the bus and number of slots available at a given frequency cannot be expanded to meet the needs for more components, and the limitation hinders further development of fast, efficient distributed networks, such as system area networks. New switched network topologies and systems are required to keep up with the increasing demands.
The present invention recognizes the need for faster, more efficient computer networks offering the features demanded by the developments of technology. More specifically, the present invention recognizes the need for providing a method or system for informing an operating system (OS) when a (new) device is connected to a scalable, distributed computer network.